Woman passes out in Davis Square T-stop escalator
As I was about to enter the down escalator at the College Avenue entrance to the Davis Square T-station I saw a black woman with a small girl a little more than halfway down the escalator. Right before my very eyes the woman suddenly lost her balance and slowly fell forward. The child started screaming hysterically. I started punching the escalator’s emergency stop button, not realizing that one has to lift a small plastic lid before one can push the button. I think somebody at the bottom of the escalator hit the button at his end just before I figured that out.
One urban nightmare is that of one passing out in a subway station or in the street and having one’s plight ignored by passers by. That’s not what happened in this case. A half dozen people immediately congregated around the woman, who was still down, and the child, who quickly stopped screaming. I called 911 while the others checked in on the woman and engaged the girl. I waited around until emergency personnel reached the woman, others lingered for at least as long. The woman was back on her feet by the time the firefighters arrived (the ambulance overshot the station and arrived a few seconds after the fire truck), but I didn’t see her on the platform so I assume they did some tests on her.
No pictures. It just wasn’t a Kodak moment. I’m sure my furious and futile punching of the plastic lid was documented by a surveillance camera.
